7 he Douglas Fir. 



337 



THE DOUGLAS FIR. (Pseudotsuga 



1367. This is incomparably the finest of the firs, surpassing them 

 all in size, and equaling the best in value 

 as a timber tree. It extends from Mex- 

 ico, New Mexico, and Colorado, through 

 the mountain regions of the Pacific Coast, 

 occurring in Oregon to the enormous size 

 of 200 to 300 feet in height, and from 

 15 to 20 feet in diameter. It is more 

 commonly about 150 feet high, and from 

 4 to 8 feet in diameter. 



13G8. This tree has a tall pyramidal 

 growth, with horizontal and drooping 

 branches. The bark is rather thin, of an 

 ash or reddish color, and the wood is 

 coarse-grained, but tough and hard. It 

 extends northward into Alaska, and 

 is largely developed in British Colum- 

 bia. Professor New berry in describing 

 this tree as it grows in Oregon, i. cone and Leaves of the 



Douglas Fir, of two-thirds 

 ^ :l . vs : the Mutural Size. 



1369. "The trees stand relatively as near each other, and the 

 trunks are as tall and slender, as the canes in a cauebrake. In this 

 case, the foliage is confined to the tuft at the top of the tree, the 

 trunk forming a cylindrical column as straight as an arrow, and 

 almost without branches for two hundred feet. The amount of 

 timber on an acre of this forest very much exceeds that on a simi- 

 lar area in the tropics or in any part of the world I have visited." 



1370. The Douglas fir, in British Columbia, forms the principal 

 lumber yet exported from that Province. It forms dark and dense 

 forests of considerable extent, the wood being, for the most part, 

 of excellent quality for ship-building, but varying considerably in 

 strength and texture, according to the conditions under which it 



1 Commonly described a the "Abies Doufflnsii." and known by a great va- 

 riety of common names, such as " Red " or " Black " Fir, " Red " or " Black " 

 Spruce, " Hemlock," ' Orogon Pine," "Western Pitch Pine," etc. In the 

 Uinto Mountains, it is known as the "Bear River Pine," or "Swamp Pine." 



22 



